The Eyewitness (16 page)

“We were held in an army camp for a year, I think. There were so many men. Sometimes twenty a day. No condoms. They gave us antibiotics every month. Beat us if we didn't take them. Then there was a problem in the camp and we were put in a motel.” She forced a smile.

“That was better. Not so many men and they gave us condoms.”

Solomon sat in silence. Outside, black cabs ferried businessmen to meetings, couriers zipped by on bicycles, all Lycra and leggings, and wannabe movie producers dressed in Armani shouted into mobile phones. Only feet away from them Inga was talking about sex slavery, girls traded like a commodity, bought, sold and repeatedly raped.

“I was in the motel for six months,” she said.

“Then we were moved again. They took us to Belgrade. There was a big auction there. Hundreds of girls. I was sold for three thousand dollars.” She smiled ruefully.

“My price had gone up. I don't know why.”

“Who bought you?”

“My boss. Sasha. He's from Albania. He bought six girls at the auction. He brought us to London and we work for him here.”

“He's your pimp?”

“He's my boss.”

“How much do you give him?”

She frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“The money you earn. How much do you give him?”

“You don't understand how it works, do you?” she said sadly.

“Tell me.”

“All the money is for him. He gives me somewhere to live and some money for my food, and I get some money to spend, but he keeps all the money the customers give.”

“That's outrageous!” said Solomon.

“He bought me,” said Inga, 'and he paid to get me into London. He paid for the passport, the visa and my ticket. He paid for the clothes I'm wearing. I have to work for him until I have paid him what I owe him."

“How long will that be?”

“I don't know. Maybe never.”

“You don't mean that, surely.”

“He says it cost him twenty thousand dollars to get me here. I have to repay that with interest.”

“But you must earn a lot, doing what you do?”

“Not so much. Maybe ten customers a day. Sometimes more. Some pay forty pounds, some sixty, some eighty. More if they want special services.”

Solomon didn't want to know what the 'special services' were.

“So, you must make about six hundred pounds a day.”

She nodded.

“More sometimes. But that's for the flat. Not for me. There's rent for the flat, the maid's wages, the phone, the card-boy. If I earn six hundred, Sasha says my share is one hundred, and that goes to pay off my debt.”

Solomon did a quick calculation in his head. Twenty thousand dollars was about fourteen thousand pounds, give or take. At a hundred pounds a day that would take a hundred and forty days to pay off.

“Okay, so you'd have to work for him for three or four months, right?” he said.

“Then you'd be free?”

She smiled despondently.

“You are forgetting the interest. And the money for my school. I study English three times a week. And my rent. He charges me for everything and it all gets added to what I owe.”

“Have you asked him when it'll be paid back?”

“That's not something you ask Sasha. When I don't owe him anything, he'll tell me.”

“And how many girls work for him?”

Inga picked up her cup and sipped the espresso, her eyes on his face. She put the cup down slowly.

“Why do you want to know about Sasha?” she asked.

“I don't,” he said quickly.

“It just seems that what he's doing isn't fair, that's all. It's as if you're a slave.”

“I am not a slave,” she snapped.

“But you're forced to work for nothing.”

“I'm not working for nothing. I am paying off a debt.”

Solomon leaned towards her.

“But it's his debt, not yours. He paid money for you, at an auction, you said. Why should you have to pay that money back? He's the one who brought you to London. It's his debt not yours.”

She sighed.

“You don't understand.”

“I understand that he's ripping you off.”

“He's not ripping me off.”

“You're earning five hundred pounds a day for him. He's making a fortune from you. And the little money he says is yours goes to pay off money he says you owe him. That's crazy. Look, suppose you said you didn't want to work for him any more. Suppose you said you wanted to go back to Bulgaria?”

“I cannot go. He has my passport.”

“So you're a prisoner?”

“How am I a prisoner?” she said.

“I am here talking to you. I go to school to learn English. Every month I have a day off.”

“But don't you want to go back to your own country?”

“What do I have back there? I have no family, no job, no money. If I go back to Bulgaria I will be on my own. At least here I have...”

Solomon knew what she was going to say. At least she had Sasha. He sat back in his chair. He couldn't understand why she was so sanguine about her situation. She'd been taken from her country, sold into virtual slavery and forced to sleep with hundreds of men, yet there was no trace of anger or bitterness.

“I must go,” she said, standing up.

“If I am late I am fined.”

“You're what?”

“For every minute I am late, I am fined ten pounds,” she said.

Solomon scribbled his mobile-phone number on the coffee-shop receipt and gave it to her.

“If you see her, call me. Please.”

She nodded and took the piece of paper from him. She put on her sunglasses and walked away without saying goodbye.

Solomon awoke to the sound of a loud buzzing. He rolled over, groped for the alarm clock on the bedside table, then realised it was his mobile. He fumbled for it.

“Yeah?” he grunted. He squinted at the clock. It was just after one a.m. He'd only been asleep for an hour.

“David?” It was a girl.

“You are David?”

David? Who the hell was David? He was about to tell her she had a wrong number when he remembered.

“Hi,” he said.

“Who's that?”

“It's Inga. How are you?”

Solomon sat up.

“I'm fine. Are you okay?”

“I think I know where you can find the girl you're looking for.”

Suddenly Solomon was wide awake.

“Where?”

“I don't mean I know where she is, but I've spoken to a girl who's met her.”

“Here in London?”

“I think so,” she said, 'but she needs to see the photograph to be sure."

“Who is she, this girl?”

“She does the same as me. She's from the Ukraine.”

“And she's met her? You're sure?”

“She thinks so. But she needs to see the photograph.”

Solomon heard someone whispering to her. Then the sound was cut off as if she'd put her hand across the mouthpiece.

“Inga, is the girl there now?”

There was a pause.

“She's here but she doesn't want to talk to you.” said Inga eventually.

“She wants to see the photograph. Is that okay?”

“Now?” said Solomon.

“It's one o'clock in the morning.”

“She works all day,” said Inga.

“There are many girls at the house where she stays and they're not allowed out unless one of the boss's men goes with them. Now is the only time you can see her on her own.”

“She doesn't work for Sasha?”

“No, her boss is a Russian. He beats the girls if they talk to anyone outside work. We must do this now.”

“Where are you?”

“Soho.”

“If I get a minicab I can be there in half an hour.”

Inga's hand went over the mouthpiece again. Solomon took a quick look at the screen of his mobile. The caller ID had been blocked.

“Okay, you come here,” said Inga.

“You know where you saw me?”

“Wardour Street?”

“Near there. You know Soho Square?”

“Sure.”

“There's a public toilet there. At the end near Oxford Street. We will see you there, okay?”

The phone went dead. Solomon pulled on his clothes, called a minicab firm on his mobile, then went outside to wait on the pavement. Ten minutes later, a battered Honda Civic pulled up.

As they drove to Soho, Solomon looked at Nicole's photograph. He wondered if she felt it was better to be a prostitute in the West than homeless and unwanted in her own country. Maybe Diane had a point: maybe choice was a luxury, a privilege rather than a right, and girls like Inga and Nicole were doing the only thing they could do to survive.

He wondered, too, what he could offer Nicole to persuade her to go back with him to Sarajevo. If she'd wanted to see the men who'd murdered her family caught, then surely she'd have stayed in Kosovo and gone to the authorities. She'd made the decision to run and, like Inga, she had nothing to go back to. If she was in the UK illegally, her fingerprints and photograph would go on file and she'd find it difficult to return, legally or otherwise. She had no family left in Kosovo, and Solomon doubted that she'd be able to stay with Teuter Berisha, or even that she'd want to.

He put the photograph back into his pocket and closed his eyes.

“I drop you Charing Cross Road, okay?” asked the driver. He was watching Solomon in the rear-view mirror. He had dark eyes, almost black, and a thick stubble over his chin.

“Sure, whatever.” Said Solomon.

The driver swerved to avoid a bus and pounded on the horn.

“Where are you from?” asked Solomon, suddenly curious.

“Afghanistan,” said the man.

“Have you been here long?”

“Five years,” said the man.

“Taliban kill my family. My father general, work with Russians. Taliban kill all soldiers work with Russians. Kill my father, my mother and my sister.”

“How did you get to England?”

“We pay agent in Kabul. He take us to India. Pay another agent there for passport and visa.”

“What about going back to Afghanistan? The Taliban have gone now, does that mean it's safe for you to return?”

The driver snorted derisively.

“Why go back? I get British passport soon. Soon I British, same you.” He pulled up sharply.

“Charing Cross Road,” he said.

Solomon paid him and walked past book shops and fast-food restaurants towards Soho Square. A young man was bedding down in a bookshop doorway with a black and white collie and a bottle of Strongbow cider.

Soho Square was almost deserted. Most of the buildings that fronted it were offices or studios; the bars, nightclubs and strip-joints were further west. In the centre of the square there was a garden where, during lunch times on fine days, office workers flocked to eat their sandwiches. Someone was standing at the entrance it was Inga, still wearing her sunglasses.

“Where's the girl?” Solomon asked as he reached her.

Inga seemed tense.

“She didn't want to wait here,” she said.

“She was scared somebody might see her.”

Solomon groaned.

“You mean I've wasted my time?”

“No, no,” said Inga.

“She's with a friend not far from here. We can walk.”

“Are you okay, Inga?” asked Solomon.

“You look nervous.”

“I'm okay,” she said. She slipped her arm through his and smiled.

“I'm glad to see you again.”

Solomon smiled back, but his mind was racing. Something didn't feel right. He could feel her tension she was practically shaking. And the smile she'd given him had been more the grimace of a frightened dog.

She guided him away from the garden towards Carlisle Street. She was biting her lower lip and there were deep frown lines across her forehead. Solomon stopped and swung her round to face him.

“Inga, what's the matter?”

“Nothing.” She tugged at his arm.

“Come.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

“I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's happening.” A blue van turned into the square. Inga glanced at it.

“It's okay, it's not the police,” said Solomon.

“Please, David .. .” said Inga.

“What?” asked Solomon.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. This way.” She pulled his arm and they crossed the road. The blue van stopped and its lights went off.

“Inga, where are we going?” asked Solomon.

“This way,” she said.

A car door opened behind Solomon. Then another. Two big men in long coats climbed out of a BMW. One was smoking a cigar. They slammed the doors and started to walk purposefully towards where Solomon and Inga were standing. Solomon knew it was him they were after. He tried to pull away from Inga but she held on to his arm. The men broke into a run.

Two more got out of the blue van and rushed towards Solomon. He pushed Inga away.

“What is this?” he shouted.

“I'm sorry,” she said. She was hugging herself.

“I'm sorry,” she repeated.

The men from the BMW were only yards away. Solomon put up his hands to defend himself. Both men were bigger, younger and stronger than he was. And the one who wasn't smoking had something in his right hand. A cosh or a truncheon, about eight inches long, made of black, shiny material. He stared at Solomon, his mouth set.

“What do you want?” Solomon asked.

The man with the cigar nodded at the one with the cosh and they moved apart to block Solomon's way. There were rapid steps behind him, but he couldn't turn because he knew that if he did the man with the cosh would hit him. He stepped off the pavement into the road and tried to run past the men from the BMW but, despite their bulk, they moved quickly. The man with the cigar kicked out and Solomon jumped to the side, losing his balance and slipping on the Tarmac. He fell on one knee, cursing. The cosh delivered a stinging blow to his left elbow. Solomon yelped with pain and his left arm hung uselessly at his side. As he tried to get back to his feet, he saw Inga standing on the pavement, her hands covering her face.

Then the man with the cigar kicked him in the chest and he fell back, his head slamming against the road. He lay there, head spinning. The man who'd kicked him grinned and took a deep pull on his cigar.

Then the two men from the van grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. He kicked at the man with the cigar but missed.

The man with the cosh stepped forward, raised his arm and Solomon felt a sickening blow to the back of his head before everything went black.

A wave of nausea washed over him as he opened his eyes and he vomited. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and coughed, trying to clear his throat. He was lying on bare concrete, facing a brick wall. He tried to roll over but pain lanced through his left arm. He lay where he was, flexing his fingers one by one. Once he was satisfied that he could move them he checked his forearm and elbow. Nothing seemed to be broken.

He heard voices muttering somewhere behind him and used his right arm to force himself into a sitting position. His head was throbbing and he felt close to passing out again.

Someone shone a light into his face and he turned his head away.

“Who are you?” snarled a voice.

The accent was familiar, but Solomon couldn't place it. His driving licence and credit cards were in his wallet, along with his International War-dead Commission credentials, so he knew there was no point in lying.

“Solomon,” he said.

“Jack Solomon.”

“You told the girl your name was David.”

“I don't think anyone uses their right names when they visit hookers, do they?”

He was kicked in the side, hard.

“Don't try to be clever,” said the man.

“Who do you work for?”

“A charity.”

“You look like a cop.”

Solomon spat bloody phlegm on to the floor.

“You know I'm not a cop,” he said.

“You wouldn't be doing this if you thought I was a cop.”

“You gave your phone number to my girl. Why did you do that? What did she tell you?” He was kicked again, harder this time.

“Okay, okay!” shouted Solomon.

“I'm looking for a girl from Kosovo. I asked Inga if she saw her to give me a call.”

“What's your interest in Kosovo?”

“I work out there.” He shaded his eyes with his right hand. A broad-shouldered man was sitting on a chair. Next to him was an Anglepoise lamp that had been twisted to point at Solomon.

“For who?”

“For a charity. We identify bodies.”

“You have proof of this?”

“My ID. It's in my wallet.”

“Show me.”

Solomon took out his wallet and held it towards the man, who got up and took it from him. He studied Solomon's identification, then tossed back the wallet.

“Why are you in London?” asked the man.

“I'm looking for a witness to an atrocity in Kosovo.”

“Where in Kosovo?”

“Near Pristina.” He put away his wallet and rubbed his arm.

“You could have broken my elbow.”

“I could have done a lot worse.”

The man walked back to his chair, sat down and spoke in Albanian to the man who'd delivered the kick.

Solomon heard footsteps to his left, then a scraping sound. His arms were seized and he was pulled to his feet, then forced roughly on to a chair.

Fluorescent lights flickered into life. Solomon looked around him: he was in a windowless cellar with low ceilings, bare brick walls and a single wooden door. The big man from the BMW was standing with his hand on the light switch. There was a damp, musty smell, and in one corner of the room he could see a cardboard tray filled with what he assumed was rat poison. Two men were standing behind him.

The man on the chair was the man who'd been smoking the cigar. He was in his mid-to late-thirties with a square face, dark brown hair cut short and pale grey eyes.

“You're Sasha?” asked Solomon.

The man's eyes narrowed.

“She told you my name, did she?”

“That's all she told me,” said Solomon.

“It's more than enough,” he said.

“Look, I don't want to get anyone into trouble,” said Solomon.

“I just want to find the girl I'm looking for.”

“What is her name, this girl?”

“Nicole. Nicole Shala. She might be calling herself Amy.”

“You have her photograph?”

Solomon took it out. The man who'd kicked him took it from him and handed it to Sasha, who grimaced as he looked at it, then shook his head.

“Kosovar Albanian?”

Solomon nodded. Sasha would have known that from her name. Names in the Balkans were as identifiable as bar codes.

“Muslim?”

Solomon nodded again.

“What happened?”

Solomon explained how Nicole's family had been killed. Sasha listened without saying anything. When he finished, the other man grunted and put the photograph into the pocket of his leather jacket. Solomon didn't object. It was the original that he'd brought from Sarajevo, but he had photocopies in McLaren's flat.

“Why do you think she is in London?” Sasha asked.

“She worked in a bar in Pristina,” said Solomon.

“A lot of the girls there moved to EC countries.” That was a lie, but he couldn't take the risk that Sasha knew Ivan Petrovic. Petrovic was a Serb and Sasha was an Albanian so in theory they would be sworn enemies but crime produced strange bedfellows.

“So London is a guess?”

Solomon shrugged.

“I had to start somewhere.”

“And you were approaching girls at random, asking if they'd seen this girl?” He patted his pocket.

“Yeah.”

“That's not much of a plan.”

“Needle in a haystack, I know. But I had to do something.”

“It is dangerous to question working girls,” said Sasha.

Solomon touched his injured arm.

“So I've discovered.”

“We have to protect our investments,” said Sasha.

“The police and Immigration want to send them back. Other gangs want to steal them. We have customers who want to rescue them.”

“Is that what you thought? That I wanted to rescue Inga?”

“I found the phone number you gave her. She told me what you had said to her, but I wanted to check for myself.” Sasha stood up.

“Do you drink whisky?”

Solomon was confused.

“What?”

“Whisky. Do you drink whisky?”

“Sure.”

Sasha turned and walked towards the door. The man by the light switch opened it for him.

“Come with me,” said Sasha.

Solomon stood up and followed him out of the cellar. The door led to a stairway. They went up it, and into a huge kitchen with gleaming stainless-steel cupboards and huge industrial-sized appliances. The fridge was the size of two telephone boxes and there were ten gas burners on the hob. Nothing appeared to have been used; every surface was pristine. The floor was polished granite.

Sasha walked through it to a living room the size of a hotel lobby. At the far end was a massive marble fireplace topped by a mirror the size of a shop window. All the furniture was ornate, with gilt frames, curves and claws and overstuffed upholstery.

Sasha waved Solomon to an uncomfortable-looking chair, then walked over to one of the sideboards, which was laden with bottles of spirits. He sloshed generous measures of Johnnie Walker Black Label into two crystal tumblers. He handed one to Solomon, then sprawled on a sofa.

“How long have you been in Bosnia?” he asked.

“Two years in Sarajevo, and I was in Kosovo for a year before that, working for the International War-dead Commission. Before that I worked for a charity delivering food and medicines throughout the Balkans.”

Sasha nodded and sipped his whisky.

“I have heard of the Commission. You identify dead Muslims, right?”

Solomon shook his head emphatically.

"We identify remains.

Usually all we have to work on is a few bones, so it's down to DNA analysis. And there's no way of telling from DNA whether the person is Muslim or Christian, Albanian or Serb."

“I lost my brother. And five cousins. Murdered by the Serbs.”

“What happened?”

“What happened?” Sasha snarled.

“The Serbs took them out and shot them, that's what happened. Then they took everything they owned out of their houses, stole what they wanted and burned the rest.”

“This was in Albania?”

“Kosovo. My family is from Albania originally, but my grandparents moved to Kosovo just before the Second World War. They were Christians. Many of my brother's neighbours were Serbs. The ones who didn't do the killing just stood by and watched. Serb families moved into their houses.”

“A lot of appalling things happened over there.”

Sasha's eyes hardened.

“You don't know what it's like until it has happened to you. To someone you know.”

There was nothing Solomon could say. He knew what it was like to watch a loved one die, to hold a dying child in his arms. But he was damned if he was going to discuss his personal life with a pimp and trafficker who'd thought nothing of abducting him and beating him up. He might have taken Solomon into his sitting room and poured him a whisky but didn't make him any less of a thug. And Solomon wasn't taken in by the man's sudden affability. Sasha was a nasty piece of work the sharp pain in his elbow and the ache in his ribs where he'd been kicked were testimony to that.

“We bring closure,” said Solomon.

“Thousands of people have no idea what happened to their loved ones and until they have a body to grieve over they're in limbo.”

“Shit job,” said Sasha.

Solomon said nothing. It was a shit job, but at least it was an honest one. Sasha made his living out of young girls prostituting themselves, and he clearly had no compunction about using threats and violence. He was a violent pimp. But Solomon didn't want to go back into the basement for another kicking so he smiled and nodded.

“Why is a Jew doing a shit job in Kosovo?”

“I'm not Jewish,” said Solomon.

“Solomon is a Jewish name,” said Sasha.

“My grandfather was Jewish, but he married a Catholic.”

“So what are you?”

It was difficult for Solomon to say exactly what he was. The easy answer was Church of England, because he'd gone to a Church of England school when he was a child, but he hadn't worshipped in a church for more than thirty years. Even his marriage had taken place in a register office.

“Agnostic, I guess,” he said.

“Agnostic means what?” asked Sasha.

“Agnostic means that I just don't know.”

“I thought that was an atheist.”

“Atheists know that there's no God. Agnostics aren't sure.”

“And that's how you feel? That maybe there's no God.”

Solomon groaned.

“Sasha, I don't know, and frankly I don't care. If there is a God, and if he's allowed the sort of things to happen that have happened in the Balkans, then I'm not sure I'd want anything to do with him.”

Sasha threw back his head and roared with laughter.

“That means that if you turn up at the gates of heaven, and he's there waiting for you, you're just going to say thanks, but no thanks?”

“There's no heaven, Sasha. There might be a hell, but it's here on earth.”

“You're a bitter, twisted man.”

Solomon raised his glass.

“Thanks for the character assessment.”

“It's probably because you're a mongrel,” said Sasha.

“What?”

“Jewish grandfather, Christian grandmother, who knows what else? Mixing blood leads to disaster. That was always the problem with Yugoslavia. Too many races forced to live together.”

Solomon sat tight-lipped. There was no way he was going to be drawn into an argument about racial integration with a man like Sasha. He just wanted to get out of the house in one piece.

Sasha drained his whisky glass in several gulps.

“Are you going to continue looking for this girl?” asked Sasha.

“Yes,” said Solomon.

“I would advise against approaching any more of my girls,” said Sasha.

“I understand. But how will I know if they work for you or not?”

Sasha flashed Solomon a tight smile.

“You can assume that if they are in Soho they work for me,” he said.

“All of them?” Solomon was surprised.

“I defend my territory, Jack,” said Sasha, 'and Soho is my territory."

“Okay,” he agreed.

“I'm glad we understand each other,” said Sasha. He stood up and held out his arm, indicating that Solomon should leave, then showed him to the front door.

“This man will drive you to wherever you want to go,” he said.

“It's okay, I'll get a black cab.”

“My man will drive you,” repeated Sasha, his voice harder.

“Where are you staying in London?”

“Bayswater,” said Solomon.

A thug was standing next to a large Mercedes, its engine running. He stared stonily at Solomon, who felt the urge to run, but there was a high wall surrounding the garden topped with metal spikes and the wrought-iron gate at the end of the drive was shut. Sasha shouted something to the man in Albanian. It wasn't a language Solomon understood, let alone spoke, but he didn't hear the word "Bayswater'. He climbed into the back of the car and the door slammed.

The driver turned and grinned at him and gave him an exaggerated thumbs-up. Solomon smiled uneasily. The other passenger door opened and the thug climbed in next to him. Solomon flinched as the locks clicked. The Mercedes headed down the drive and the gates swung open. Solomon twisted in his seat and caught a last glimpse of Sasha standing in his doorway, his hands on his hips, staring after the car.